


bestial

by possumsunshine



Series: changing [2]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 16:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30108582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possumsunshine/pseuds/possumsunshine
Summary: They'd had a plan for his turning, a promise, every step thoroughly thought out and considered; and then all of it was gone, destroyed in an instant.
Relationships: Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles), Male Detective & Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles), Male Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles)
Series: changing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2215515
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	bestial

**Author's Note:**

> kiss kiss to my friends who put this wretched brainworm in my head, i love y'all and i hate y'all

His ears are ringing.

Still ringing.

Still ringing from the gunshot, the one that had finally felled him, the one that had sent the DMB-laced bullet through Levy's chest, through his heart--

Mason swallows.

He waits. 

It wasn't how it was supposed to be.

They'd had a plan for his turning, a promise, every step thoroughly thought out and considered, every preparation made.

And then it had all gone to hell.

All of it destroyed in a wretched, violent instant.

He rubs his hand over his mouth, smells the sharp, bitter tang of iron that won't go away, no matter how hot the water or how long he scrubs; the smell of Levy's blood, soaked into his skin. 

The facility holding cell is silent as the grave, empty except for him, dark and quiet. From his perch in the farthest corner, unmoving, unyielding, he's observed every inch of it, scrutinized and examined, because if he closes his eyes for just a minute, even a second, he sees it.

Sees him.

Levy, wide eyed, staring at nothing, writhing on the dirty floor of the ghoul's hideout, mouth agape as he grasps at his own mortal wound, blood pouring between his fingers. 

Levy, eyes cold as the life drains from him, limp in his arms as Mason heaves him up to turn him out of sheer fucking desperation, praying that this might not end the way an ugly, brutal part of him deep inside knows it will.

Levy, eyes dark, hair matted and stained, neck mauled in a gruesome tangle of gore and torn flesh, stalking towards him despite his leg snapped at the ankle, fangs bared. 

If he focuses on the bars over the high window, counts them for the umpteenth time, trying to calm his boiling blood, then he doesn't see it.

But still, he hears him.

Under the tinny ringing, there is a cacophony of noise, so much fucking noise and all of it is Levy: his raspy good-mornings, his fond good-nights, the way his voice carries the word 'sunshine' like he'd invented it just for Mason, his cackle of a laugh, his broken moans when Mason fucks him right, his mindless humming as he paints, his unending chatter about work and horror films and possums whatever else is on his mind, his heartbeat, so familiar, dying out--

Levy, bathed in midafternoon sunlight, asking Mason to kill him should this happen.

Levy's bestial, gutteral growl when he didn't.

Without realizing it, Mason has mutilated the sink he leans on, hands gripping and tearing through the dense metal of it as if it were paper. He palms the shards of it, whips them at the wall and finds it soothing to watch it crack under the impact, the noise of it drowning out the din for one brief, relieving second.

He draws in a ragged breath.

Nate had been the one to separate them, disentangling the two of them as gently as possible even as Mason fought against him, shoving his hands off, snarling and snapping. In the midst of Levy, he hears Nate too, pleading with Mason softly as he cried-- _Mason, you have to let him go, he won't survive if you don't, he's dying, you know it, Mason please._ When he'd finally yielded, buckled, broken down at the realization that Levy's eyes had gone vacant and glassy, his heartbeat slowed to a sluggish pace and stalling further, Nate takes him, lighter and smaller than ever, limp like a ragdoll, and passes his body to Adam, who hands him right to the Agency fuckface who'd shot him. 

The rest is a blur. 

Nate had tried to hold him back, and failed; Felix had wailed something at him as he barrels at Adam, _stop_ or maybe _no_ but he hadn't processed it. Mason's fairly certain he'd gotten Adam in the face, tearing off a chunk of his cheek before taking a hard blow to the stomach, but he's not sure--after he'd lunged at him, several unnamed, faceless Agents had jumped him, stabbing him with needles, forcing his arms back into cuffs that felt like knives slicing into his wrists.

When he'd come to, he was here, still in his shredded and torn shirt, blood dried in the corners of his mouth, on his nose and chin and neck, door locked tight to keep him in no matter how much he had scrabbled, thrown himself against it, screamed. 

The hours go by, or perhaps they don't. Thinking about it, about Levy, one moment smiling, the next lips curled with hideous hunger--Mason can't do anything else, other than occasionally break his knuckles against concrete again, again, again--makes time go slower and faster. 

He'd kill for a fucking cigarette.

He'd almost kill for a shot of DMB even, just to find reprieve for a few minutes.

Eventually a knock pulls him from his agonizing reverie, and Mason starts, immediately at the door. 

"It's me," Nate says, muffled by several inches of adamant steel, "But you have to get back from the door." A pause. "With your hands up, Mason." 

"Where is he?" 

"Mason, step away from the door, please," Nate begs, exasperated.

"Where is he?" 

"Step back, Agent," a harsh and unfamiliar voice cuts in, "Or we'll have to sedate you again." 

"Fuck off!" Mason snarls, "Nate, where the fuck is he?" 

Silence falls for a moment, and he hears Nate sigh deeply.

"Let me in, Mason. And then we can talk." 

Something in the tone of his voice--remorse, sadness, sorrow, something that hurts--makes him relent, and he backs slowly against the far wall, hands on his head.

The door opens, letting in a blinding stream of light from the hall that draws a hiss from Mason, and the very second Nate is inside, the door slams shut again with a lock-click that echoes like whipcrack. Nate gives him a baleful smile that doesn't reach his eyes, and tosses a blood packet to him, one that he immediately whips back.

"Where is he," Mason growls again, no longer a question, now a threat simmering in his throat.

"You have to eat, Mason. It's been--" He checks his watch, and grimaces at the time. "--close to eighteen hours now. You've done a lot of fighting...and, you know." The words unspoken--turning someone is a tiring ritual, and Mason is indeed exhausted down to his bones, every inch of him aching. 

But he only stares, grey eyes stone cold, piercing, stubborn.

Nate sighs. 

"We don't know anything yet. I have no information for you," he admits, gingerly taking a step towards him. "But when I do, you'll be the first to know, I swear it." 

"Is he here?" 

Nate balks. "I dont know." 

"You _do_ know," Mason hisses, and knows he is right from the way Nate's brow furrows, the way his lips crease, the way the muscle of his neck twitches. Nate rolls his lips, hemming, hawing, inner turmoil about what he can and cannot share blatant on his usually amiable face.

"He's here. Somewhere. I don't know where. They wouldn't tell me." Again, unspoken: because they knew he'd want to see Mason, and they knew he'd relent. "Please eat?" 

He doesn't, but Nate spends a while with him regardless, shoulder to shoulder in the dark; despite the offer to talk, there is no conversation, just the quiet comfort of his presence. Nate says nothing about the ruined sink, the cracks in the walls, the mix of blood on his now-healed hands, says nothing at all until he finally must, his need to console stronger than his will to give Mason his much-needed silence.

"You did the right thing," he murmurs, cutting through the dark.

"No," Mason says simply, voice rough, "He wanted me to kill him." Mason bites back the burning in his eyes with a twisted, pained grimace. "And I couldn't." 

Nate's arm, burning hot against him, solid like a tree, wraps around his shoulders, and for once he doesn't fight it. Mason lets himself be pulled in, Nate resting his cheek against his hair, breathing in and out, a steady, lulling rhythm. "He'll understand. Things are never so simple." 

"If they--" He tears at the inside of his cheek, swallows back a rising sob that threatens to strangle the words from his throat. "If they cage him--" 

"We won't let that happen," Nate says, barely a whisper, squeezing his shoulder. "You have my word." 


End file.
